𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵, 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟱𝟳: 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻
Prester John is a legendary Christian priest-king of Asia whose stories were popular from the 12th to 17th centuries in Europe and became a driving force for the age of European exploration. The title, “Prester” is an archaic form of the modern English word “priest”, both from Greek “presbyteros”, “πρεσβύτερος”, meaning “elder”.
𝗜𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝘅𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗔𝘀𝗶𝗮
By the start of the 12th century the conflict between Islam and Christianity was established and virulent. During this period, the Islamic world was experiencing a “Golden Age” but Christian Europe was experiencing the opposite, a “Dark Age”. Part of this was due to the fact that while the Islamic world was enjoying internal unity and trade with Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, Europe was cut off from the world. Islamic nations controlled all of North Africa, the Levant, and most of modern-day Turkey. The only access to non-European lands lay through what is now Russia and required dangerous travel through effective no-mans-land in Central and Northern Asia. First-hand knowledge of the world beyond Europe became increasingly sparse and thus such knowledge was primarily maintained via legends and hearsay which became increasingly outlandish. It is this environment that enabled the figure of Prester John. Though there are some accounts prior, the legend began in earnest in 1165 with the spread of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯, a text that presented itself as a letter from Prester John to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. In it Prester John identifies himself as a descendant of one of the three Magi, the wise men who were present for the birth of Jesus, the Christian messiah. Not only is Prester John of this sacred lineage, but he is a king of a fabulous Christian paradise in India, full of all kinds of supernatural marvels and riches. This tale not only captured European imaginations; it inspired hope. Belief that a great eastern power might come to aid the Christians of Europe against the Muslims built faith that Christian victory was achievable. There is some question as to how much people believed in these stories, as they were quite fantastic and, even in the Dark Ages, Europe was not without academia. However, the historical record implies that, at least among the common folk, belief in Prester John was more common than not, and scholars who did not themselves believe the tales would still use Prester John as a means to describe more accurate information in terms that common people would accept.
𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗞𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻
The Letter of Prester John placed the kingdom in India, which lines up with the biblical legend of St. Thomas, a disciple of Jesus who was supposed to have spread Christianity as far as India. However, in the 13th century word came back from the fifth crusade that the Muslims were finally being assaulted from the east by a certain “King David”. In actuality, this was Genghis Khan, whose Mongol Empire was quickly spreading across Asia to become the largest continental empire in history. Even as Europeans realized who was actually responsible for assaulting their enemies, the idea of Prester John was so ingrained that they came up with stories to link Prester John to Genghis Khan, the most common being that Genghis’ father, Toghrul, was actually Prester John. There was actually some basis to this: though Genghis practiced indigenous Mongolian faith (Tengrism), Toghrul was a Christian and a Nestorian, the long divergent Asian branch of Christianity to which Prester John was also told to belong. The mythos of Prester John now firmly placed his kingdom in Central Asia. With the Mongol Empire protecting roads from Eastern Europe throughout Asia, Europeans suddenly had access to the world again, and many of them used that to search for the mythic kingdom. However, by the end of the 13th century Mongol unity was crumbling and roads were becoming unsafe. European travelers had enough time to confirm that there was no fabulous Christian kingdom in central Asia, and the search for John continued elsewhere. Instead of returning to India, this time it went to Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the oldest Christian power, preceding the first European powers be almost 300 years, but had had little consistent contact with Europe in all that time. However, Marco Polo, a famous explorer who had just taken advantage of the Mongol’s roads and more, had come back with very concrete evidence of a real and powerful Christian nation. It did not take long for Prester John to become an Ethiopian King, and renewed ties between Ethiopia and Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries had many Europeans searching for evidence of him. Even ambassadors and academics who did not believe in the legends adopted the term “Prester John” as a way to refer to the current ruler of Ethiopia. With the rise of European exploration in the 17th century it would become increasingly apparent that Prester John was nowhere to be found, and in general the belief in Asia as an outlandish and exotic place would diminish. Still, the search for Prester John had played no small part in kindling the exploration age.
Image Source: Il prete Ianni, Re d'Ethiopia (Prester John, King of Ethiopia), Luca Ciamberlano, 1599
